Tonight was such an interesting and profound night for me. I went to class... well, specifically a class that I enjoy a great deal... with a professor who has inspired me since I began college...
So I'm sitting there, listening to him lecture, watching him walk back and forth across the stage with this huge projection of the u.s. territories in the background... and for the first time in what seems like ages, my soul spoke to me. I thought I'd lost it so long ago, and tonight, there it was, right where I left it deep inside myself...
And it told me I'm alright, no matter what I do or where I go, I'll be ok, because I've a good head on my shoulders. It was so profound, and so simple, because I saw myself again as my professor spoke... i saw myself in his sculpture that's on display in the art department. This sixty-five year old man, whose art is entirely based on the common man, the background of our country, or in his words "The guys who come to work early every day, aand would never dream of stealing anything." I watched him, 30 years a professor at fresno state, hobbling in his final semester here before retirement... a man who has taught over 7,000 students nationwide, whose been published in numerous established journals... who has dedicated his life to figuring out things from our human past... and there I was again.. A little tired and sick of waiting inside myself for something to happen. My mind is made up, and I'm going to succeed.
It was funny, because he started talking about this mask that the plains indians made, and the slide was of this mask and he goes "notice how the hair is swept over the eyes. We've got no ethnographic info about why this is so, but in Africa, and my africa students know where I'm going, the eyes are considered dangerous during certain parts of ceremonies.. You know, the evil eye, etc. etc. But I thought I'd bring something interestsing into it, and talk a little about shunning. (He looks at me when he says this for some strange reason, even though he knows NOTHING of my being shunned.) Nothing is more powerful and evil than shunning. It's a horrific method used to break your spirit, to try to get a human being to cave under the power of the evil eye, the lack of speech... " and he went on and on... anyway, I'll get back to that.
For the first time in years tonight, I felt like a student, an employee, an athlete, an artist...a spiritual person... a woman, in essence. I felt like i was one with myself, and this intense feeling of the sublime washed over me. I listened to the soundtrack to the hours in the abandoned courtyard of the art building playing over the loudspeaker.... standing in the rain with my sachel over my shoulder... and I let the rain baptise me into the world again. I remembered what the elders said to me as I walked to meet my girlfriend in the rain... We crossed paths half way in front of the presidential rose garden.. she had an umbrella, and as she walked up to me, I said nothing, took her umbrella, lowered it to the ground and I kissed her. God it feels good to be alive again!!!!
I think I've taken yet another step to letting go.
After class, I sat out in the rain as I said, aand my professor walked up by me and smiled and we chatted about art for a moment... and I brought up shunning. I said " You know, it's interesting to me that you'd mention that particular practice exercised in ancient cultures, because it's still used today... some religions shun members when they leave the congregation, and I'm one of those people." He rolled his eyes and said "My god, you're kidding me. That's horrible~!" and I told him "It's funny because I lost people who I thought were my friends, you know, friends I'd had for years--!" he interrupted me, and said "NO, not friends. NEVER real friends." It was like this light clicked on inside me.
"Not friends. Never friends."
Aand I suddenly realized that really, I'd lost nothing... I'd only found myself.
Tonight, I found myself in a 65 year-old man's lifetime achievement. I found myself in the rain. I found myself kissing my girlfriend surrounded by roses.
I found the sublime.